The Ultimate Fitness Diet

I'm very interested to find the ultimate diet for health and performance. I workout hard but I go back and forth as to what are the best foods to eat and in what combinations and in what form.

I really don't want this to turn into a war between Paleo guys and Vegans. This is something that benefits us all, so let's talk about this with an open mind and keep it pleasant. No condescending attitudes please.

Please provide your eating plan and the scientific facts to back it up. Or if you feel you've found the perfect diet and aren't adhering to it, tells us anyway as long as you have the facts to support it.

Recommended reading, following on the prior post:Once you are oriented to your body's natural behaviors (as this book suggests different orientations), then you can easily modify the dietary guidelines to your optimal nutrition.

woodsmen saidMany diets are not studied despite claims. The only one that has been studied is the Mediterranean diet. It composes of tomato sauce stewed in olive oil served over pasta or rice; legumes; and chocolate.

From The NYT on March 2, 2013: "This is a watershed moment in the field of nutrition, medical experts say. For the first time, researchers have shown that a diet can have an effect as powerful as drugs in preventing what really matters to patients — heart attacks, and strokes and deaths from cardiovascular disease.

The subjects were people at high risk of heart disease, and the diet was a Mediterranean one, high in olive oil or nuts.

The study, published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine, is now shaking up the field of cardiovascular medicine, infusing it with optimism. Scientists are calling for similarly rigorous studies of other popular diets that are routinely recommended by cardiologists even though there is little solid evidence that they work.

“We don’t know what the best diet is,” said Dr. Michael Lauer, the director of the division of cardiovascular sciences at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. “This is a great opportunity to come together and use power of the scientific method to get closer to the right answer.”

It seems to recommend pasta and grains, which have become very unpopular the past few years. Many nutritionists say pasta is too processed to be healthy, and they say rice has not been in our evolutionary history long enough to be healthful. These are the kinds of contradictions that keep me puzzled. Anyone care to chime in on this?

[quote]It seems to recommend pasta and grains, which have become very unpopular the past few years. Many nutritionists say pasta is too processed to be healthy, and they say rice has not been in our evolutionary history long enough to be healthful. These are the kinds of contradictions that keep me puzzled. Anyone care to chime in on this?[/quote]

Last year I tried Atkins, and I ended up with gout, but the doc said that it was kicked off by eating shrimp on a trip to Florida. It took months to get my acid levels back to normal.

In September, I decided just to use moderation, smaller portions with the only restrictions being: no pasta, no bread, no rice - just because these have empty calories. In the end, that's all it comes down to for cutting - measuring your calorie intake and creating a deficit.